From: ah248@Freenet.carleton.ca (Marisa Golini)
Subject: GIBSON Interview/Ottawa
Message-ID:
Date: 23 Sep 93 16:55:40 GMT
.................................................................
Well gang...here it is as promised, the transcript of the
chat I had with William Gibson when he stopped off in Ottawa
during his book tour. I have to say again, what an incredibly
cool guy he is...very charming. It's unfortunate I didn't get
to ask all the questions I wanted to becuz of time restrictions,
but you'll see Gibson was , shall we say, expansive with his
answers (which I didn't mind at all, 'cept I probably would've
structured my questions differently had I know he was so easy
to talk with...I really had no idea what to expect). I will say
that he told me he enjoyed the interview, and I got the feeling
(IM *most* HO) that I was pobably one of the hipper interviewers
he's had to deal with. (Can't imagine too many media types who
dress in black denim, Docs, Bajoran earrings, and produce a
hard copy of Agrippa to autograph.) ;-)
Here we go!
***********
MG:
So what's up with this Cyberpunk revival?
WG:
Revival?
MG:
O.K. Re-emergence. Haven't you noticed? It's been around for
at least 10 years, at least since "Neuromancer"...but as of late,
Time magazine does a cover story, local newspapers publish
articles. All of a sudden, it something completely new...
WG:
That's a good point. I think 10 years ago it was a literary term
you used in pop culture analysis. So initially you could say "these
six guys are writing cyberpunk science fiction"...and then it sorta
became "see that video, that's very cyberpunk" and then it got to
the point you'd hear, "man, those trousers...those are way cyberpunk"
.....So it became one of the colourations of 80's pop culture.
But I think the reason it's coming out now is becuz the meaning
has changed. So now if you did a dictionary definition of cyberpunk,
definition #1 would be something like "bohemia with computers"
or "the underground with computers". It's the first time the
underground has *had* computers. I mean the 60's would've been
really different if all us hippies had had desktop publishing!
MG:
Techno rebels!
WB:
Yeah. I think we may be headed for something like that, but it's
gonna happen in the early 21st century. People will probably look back
from the mid-21st century at what we call cyberpunk, and see it
sorta like the precursor phenomenon to whatever it is they're
going through.
MG:
So you don't think [cyberpunk's remergence] has anything to do
with just more people using computers and therefore finding out
about that "scene"?
WG:
Well, there's that too. But I don't think we're gonna see
anything too drastic happen culturally around computers until the
user-interface evolves to the point where it's easy to use. I mean,
the reason it's kinda sexy and far-out when you say "hey I do a lot
of e-mail" or "hey, I hang out on the Internet" --the reason that
has a kinda elite buzz to it, is that the learning curve is still
too steep.
MG:
Since this is a rock station, I have to ask you...What do you
think of these groups and artists such as U2, Donny Fagen and
Billy Idol who say that *you* have inspired their latest works?
Becuz, I know as far as U2 goes...their Zoo TV tour was like
something out of the dark and squishy parts of your brain!
WG:
Yeah! I was really happy with that! I met them (U2) during both
their stops in Vancouver. How I came to their attention was the
men who designed the "Steel Wheels" set for the Rolling Stones
were working totally from my early fiction, and sold the "Steel
Wheels" design to the Stones by giving the Stones my books and
saying "read this, this is what we're gonna do." I didn't know
that at the time or I would've gone to see the show. Anyhow,
the same company did "Zoo TV" and this time told me about it.
Actually, one of the plans --it didn't work out 'cuz I couldn't
convince my literary agents to let them go ahead and do it--
but Bono suggested they should run the one of my novels on one
of those electric light-bulb ticker tape screens...just run the
text through during the course of the concert.
MG:
That would've been great!
WG:
Yeah...anyway I've hung out with them and there has been
some exchange of ideas. We've been trying to figure out some
way we can work together on something.
With Donald Fagen...after having so heavily larded my first
novel with Steely Dan references, I was really delighted to find
that he actually read them, and thought it was cool! Early Steely
Dan tunes have always been huge favorites of mine.
Now, we come down to Billy Idol...
MG:
Oh...oh...and he's getting flamed on the net...
WG:
Oh god I just don't know! I mean before I heard the album, I was
dodging the issue by saying "hey, don't worry about that...the
thing you really want to worry about is Pat Benetar's album is
called 'Gravity's Rainbow.'" That's much, much stranger. Why does
Pat Benetar's new album have the title of Thomas Pynchon's great
underground classic. That's really weird. "Gravity's Rainbow" is
arguably a much more famous and important book than "Neuromancer"
....at least Billy Idol didn't call his album "Neuromancer". I mean,
what's next? Are we gonna have "Ulysses" by Bel Biv Devoe?
(in psuedo-rap) 'Yo Joyce! Man, the things he does with language,
it tore us up!' (big laughs) I don't know, it's a strange trend.
Anyway, now I've heard the album...and I just don't get what he's
on about. I don't see the connection. A London journalist told
me when Billy did his "Cyberpunk" press junket over there, he made
it a condition of getting an interview with him, that every journalist
had to have read "Neuromancer"...Anyway, they all did but when they
met with Billy, the first thing that became really apparent was that
Billy hadn't read it. So they called him on it, and he said he didn't
need to..he just absorbed it through a kinda osmosis. I don't know.
I had lunch with Billy years ago in Hollywood and we were talking
about the possiblilty of his acting in a film that someone was trying
to make based on some piece of ficton of mine, and I thought he was
a very likeable guy. He had a sense of humour about what he was
doing that is not apparent in the product he puts out. If I run
into him again, we can have a good laugh about what he's doing now!
If you wanna hear a group that, to my mind, really does embody
what I'm doing...there's a West German band called Plan B. They
sound like early Elvis Costello turned into rap music...I've got
them in heavy rotation!
MG:
Let's talk "Virtual Light"...it's a different vision than your
earlier novels...some people have said it's less bleak, more
fun, and more accessible. Would you agree?
WG:
Wellll, I think it's less bleak if you read it in a certain way.
It's a comic novel. The intention is comic. But comic doesn't
rule out bleak. In the sense that Terry Gilliam's "Brazil"
was a pretty funny movie--but *very* bleak. I think the take
on that is how you interpret the term "happy ending." So if you
think, O.K., he gets the girl, the bad guys get the shaft -BUT-
what have they bought into to get this to happen? You can read it
both ways.
MG:
Yeah I guess so. I also think it's really cool that one of
your protagonists is a bicycle messenger, and I like the whole
idea of information--even in the hi-tech age--still having
to be carried around by hand for security reasons.
WG:
Well, you can't fax a plane ticket!
MG:
It seems like it would keep you grounded..that you still have
to rely on the "pony express" so to speak.
WG:
Yeah. Like the creepy guy from the Medellin cartel who gets
his throat cut...he's another kind of bicycle messenger. He's
flying around in a concorde and staying in luxury hotels, but his
job is to physically carry this piece of information. Chevette's
there because bicycle messengers, particularly in San Fransisco,
are a really hot sub-culture. They've become a source for a lot
of creative people. Lotta people, like designers, are watching
what bicycle messengers are wearing. And they have their own bands
....there's places where messengers hang [out], and there's
messenger fanzines! I got everything I know about being a
bike messenger from "Mercury Rising" which is a fanzine put out
by the San Francisco Bike Messenger's Association. There's this
terrific coffeehouse hear the Haight called The Horseshoe
where messengers hang and young people with lots of tattoos
and multiple piercing go there too...and it's the only coffee
house I've ever seen where they've got laptop computers super-
glued to the tables. Each computer has it's own e-mail
address so you can go in, log on and do your stuff. So these
kids come in off the streets with bones through their noses,
their bodies covered in heavy Somoan blackwork, and looking
like extras out of the back streets of Bladerunner, and they
sit down and they do their e-mail! The underground in San
Francisco has mutated in a really astonishing thing. And people
haven't taken San Francisco seriously as a source for
alternative culture for a long time, but I think they're gonna
come back with a vengence...Just don't wear any flowers in
your hair!
MG:
Obviously setting the novel so near in the future didn't
restrict you in any way...the problem being with predicting
things 10 years from now, some of the beginnings of those
changes have to be happening right now.
WG:
Actually one of the things that actually delayed the completion of
the novel was that I had to wait for the Soviet Union to formally
collapse. I didn't quite realize at the time what I was waiting
for...But really, the world of Virtual Light is just "now" with
the volume cranked up. It doesn't really say in the book that it's
2005...I think you can work out exactly when it is cuz you figure
out when Rydell was born, etc. But in the proposal that I sent to
the publishers, I mentioned 2005, and they put it in the flap copy
which I wasn't entirely happy with, but I've sorta gotten into it
now becuz people come in and say "hey that can't possibly happen
now...things can't change that much in 10 years", and I say "yeah,
that's what they said in Yugoslavia."
(laughs)
No really, alot can happen in 10 years...particularly as you near
the end of the century and the millenium. We're gonna see a lot
of pretty wacky religious stuff come down unfortunately. I mean,
we've already seen it. That stuff in Waco weirded me out a little
more than it did most people because I'd already written in that
Sublett, the Texan from the video cult, was from Waco.
The other thing I got really lucky with was Tommy Lee Jones.
[In the novel, Sublett tells Rydell that he reminds him of Tommy
Lee Jones]
MG:
That's right. He's really hot right now!
WG:
Yeah, cuz when I put that in, I did it just cuz I *love* Tommy
Lee Jones, but there weren't that many people who knew who he was.
MG:
Now everybody knows! How the hell do you do that?! (laughs)
WG:
Oh I dunno...just prescient I guess.(laughs)
MG:
But, alot of the things you write about, at least to me, seem
perfectly plausible...sometimes you really creep me out when
I read this stuff!
WG:
Well, you know it's funny, sometimes when I go to do interviews
with the press, an older interviewer will be both horrified and
depressed by the book. One woman in Toronto said to me after the
interview, "but is there nothing you can tell me to give me hope!"
(laughs) That's one response...but then I saw some people being
interviewed while standing in line for my book signing in Montreal
and one guy said, "I can't wait to live in the world he's describing!
I wanna live in a Willam Gibson novel!" But he was maybe 20, so
there's very different responses.
MG:
Would *you* like to live in a William Gibson novel?
WG:
Well, not particularly...but I'd like to go there for a vacation!
[At this point, the lit. agent was waving a watch at me thru
the glass. I smiled and squeezed in a few more bits and pieces]
MG:
I guess we're running out of time, and there's so much more
I wanted to ask you including "Wild Palms"...and "Johnny
Mnemonic"--is that still a go? Tell me that's still a go...
WG:
Well, it's not *not* a go. That's about as good as it gets.
I've seen some beautiful amazing sketches for the set designs.
If it happens, the production will be based in Toronto--
probably shoot the interiors there-- and the exteriors may be
shot in some kind of industrial ruin in Hamilton. They'll
dress up this old steel mill to look like a sort of anarchist
community hung under a bridge made of dozens of gutted
Greyhound buses.
MG:
So they could start filming within the year?
WG:
Yeah, if they're gonna pull it off at all, they'll have to start
shooting in late November. It's gotta chance to go, but my
experiences in Hollywood have been so depressing with things
falling apart that I don't like to say it's happening.
MG:
I understand, and I just want to mention that I read your
"Aliens 3" script and I loved it. It was so much better than the
dreg we ended up with.
WG:
Thank you. [My version] would've cost about 170-million dollars
to film so that was part of the problem...a few thousand full-
sized aliens on screen is asking for a bit much I guess!
[At this point I handed him my copy of Virtual Light *and*
a hard copy of Agrippa to sign...we had a good laugh over that]
WG:
Hey, where did you find it [Agrippa]?
MG:
It's still on the Internet...just ask and you shall receive!
WG:
Really? What I've sorta come to realize after the fact, is
*that* was the whole point. Like, how else could you guarantee
that a 2000-word poem would remain on the Internet forever? I
*built* my daddy a monument in cyberspace! I thinks that's cool!
MG:
It's very cool.
WG:
I recently got an edited 70-page version of what happened
[what was posted] on the Internet after Agrippa came out.
It was very weird...all these messages started appearing from
"W. Gibson"-- but they weren't from me-- they were kinda
manifesting with no return address. And everyone was saying
I was mad--but I *wasn't*! Now I kinda know what it feels like
to *be* a UFO! (laughs)
MG:
Well, thanks a lot for chatting with me today. I really
enjoyed this.
WG:
I enjoyed it too. Thanks very much.
********
54 Rock Radio, Ottawa, Ontario Canada (Sept. 16/93)
Cheers!
Marisa the matrix moll.
(my .sig is stuck in virtual reality)